Thursday, December 20, 2012

It
is said the camera adds ten pounds — but that would not make much difference to
these morbidly obese glamour models. The large ladies posed in the buff for the
sake of art.

Italian
photographer Yossi Loloi, 36,
captured them for his FullBeauty project, aimed at turning the notion of beauty
and form, fashion and attraction on its head.

Each
woman weighs at least 30st — with the heaviest pushing 43st — and hides nothing
from the intrusive glare of the lens.

Yossi’s
fascination with women of size led him to New York’s underground “fat acceptance”scene in 2006
where he began taking these provocative images of women.

Yossi said:

“I wanted to show that beauty isn’t
owned by skinny people alone”. “To this end the project had to be provocative,
but at the same time reassuring, so I focussed on their fullness and femininity
as a form of protest against discrimination.

“My intention was to show women of size in a way that would be hard for people
to criticise. So I shot them in settings that weren’t instantly recognizable”.

“This way, the subjects would be
taken out of context and viewed in their own intimacy, creating a sense of liberation
and serenity”.

“I was more interested in shooting these women for what they represent and not
necessarily who they are in real life — to me they are human sculptures”. While
the photographs in his project will be judged by most on their artistic merit, Yossi accepts that they will be taken
the wrong way by some viewers.